


Pages

by Grimsy



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-25 23:49:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13223811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grimsy/pseuds/Grimsy
Summary: Crowbar's morning routine is disturbed.





	Pages

**Author's Note:**

> madison_montgomery.gif

Crowbar blinked his eyes open to a room that was unsurprisingly dark. It was early, he always woke up early. Most likely around five in the morning, if he was going to try be specific. But not too specific, because who’s specific at five in the morning.

He propped himself up on an elbow and glanced towards the clock by his bed. It was too dark to confirm any estimations; hardly enough time had been spent awake for his eyes to adjust. The sun refused to rise before seven this late in the year, but he couldn’t sit around and wait until it did. At least he knew his alarm hadn’t gone off yet. There was no way he would have slept through that.

Grimacing at the sensation of cold air, Crowbar made himself sit up. He rubbed his eyes, an encouragement for them to hurry up and make sense of the blurred shapes in the room. He sighed at a _slight_ improvement in vision. Dependable eyesight or not, it was time to get on with this earlier-than-early start.

Morning routines were dull, but they were essential to a successful day, therefore Crowbar always followed through without complaint. He knew where he was going to start. He was going to find his bathrobe, or just his towel to throw around his waist, then haul himself into the shower. Crowbar never slept in anything more than a vest and his boxers, so if he really had to, he could hop out of bed and head straight to the shower. It was never too much though, he kept it simple. It was all simple, though that was probably why it was dull.

When he was up and out, Crowbar looked at his bed. He remembered its warmth. That wonderful warmth he’d felt less than ten seconds ago and had the same urge to return to it that anyone else would have had. But that was the difference between anyone else and him. He knew how to say ‘no’ to himself. Crowbar was not without mercy however, he would give himself the warmth of his robe instead.

Yes, he knew it was a poor exchange.

Crowbar started walking over towards his door, the light that snuck in from the small gap beneath guiding him. They always left the hall lights on, in case of emergency, naturally. He stopped, still a few feet away and eyed the hook on it. No, he’d stopped hanging the robe here last month. He’d stopped using it altogether, actually. That was because last month, the Crew had been kind enough to knock before entering his room. By knock, he meant they had swung an axe through it. They had swung an axe through it and destroyed his coat. It was a new coat. Crowbar had enjoyed the sixteen hours that coat and he spent together. Very unfortunate how their time had been cut short, they were simply not meant to–

An unusual sound threw him out of his thoughts. He heard it again, slowly. Then again. His gaze, still towards the door, lowered itself from the hook all the way to the floor.

That hadn’t been there.

It hadn’t been there yesterday. It hadn’t been there last night. It hadn’t been there when Crowbar had started walking over to the door.

_That hadn’t been there._

Crowbar crept over but maintained some distance. He got down on his knees and carefully reached out.

His hand slid it—no, _them,_ carefully along the floor towards him and away from the glowing gap under his door.

He picked them up.

They were rough scribbles, drawings. Crowbar couldn’t make out their specifics in the dark, no matter how close he held them. He thought about turning on the lights, or even just his bedside lamp. But it could announce to whoever, or whatever, was on the other side that he was awake. He wouldn’t take the risk, not yet anyway.

Crowbar heard the sound again and looked away from the pages he held to see another come through. Just as before, he brought it over to himself and compared what he could see with the rest.

There were sharp, erratic shapes on the pages. Possibly outlines with heavy shading. He thought he smudged one with his thumb, but he honestly couldn’t be sure. It was impossible to distinguish anything without light.

Were they threats? Was he being threatened? Was he going to need to replace his door again? The door was already locked at least, but still.

He needed his crowbar.

Moving as quietly as he could, he made his way back towards where he’d started. Since Crowbar’s bed was tucked into the corner of the room, he often made use of the gap between the wall and his mattress to keep his namesake. No point in having a weapon if it wasn’t there when you woke up to an uninvited guest crashing in. With an axe.

The creak of the mattress as he leaned over it was more nerve-wracking than it needed to be. But his fingers found the cold metal tucked into the gap, right where he’d left it last night.

He brought it back to his place in front of the door. More pages had come through the gap since. Including the ones at his feet, there were around eight now in total.

It was weird. It was all too weird.

And now it was going to stop.

Equipped with his weapon of choice, Crowbar made sure his steps were heavy when he walked up to the door. He turned the key in the lock and let his hand hover over the handle, listening to whether the meddler had taken that as the cue to scram.

Silence. _Fine._

Just as his hand gripped the door handle, he heard the now familiar sound once more. An indicator of yet another delivery making its way under the door.

Crowbar, watching the page slowly slither in, quickly realised something. From this angle, he could see what was on it. He could see because of the light from the hallway. It was only able to reveal a slice of the page as it passed through, but he could see. He needed that light.

He quickly dropped down and his hand stopped the page halfway. Crowbar leaned down closer to it and squinted.

Was that…

 

A chicken?

The page was pulled back so fast that Crowbar’s instinct was to withdraw his hand. A beat passed and the same page was pushed under the door once more, this time uninterrupted.

_‘Die?’_

Crowbar’s voice was quieter than intended, he wondered if Die had actually heard him. Of course, it had to be Die. No one else was the combination of a) at Crowbar’s door without announcement, b) also awake at unpredictable hours, and c) drawing chickens.

He rolled his eyes to himself and leaned his crowbar against the wall. At last, he turned the door handle and opened it.

 

If he thought his room was cold, he was in no way prepared for the chilling embrace of the hallway. The light, too bright for his eyes, didn’t help to identify the figure crouched in front of him. Good thing he didn’t need it to.

Die was knelt down on the floor like Crowbar had been only minutes ago. A single page was in his hand.

He stared at Die. Die stared at him.

While he had hoped that he’d at least get an answer or a facial expression to work with, neither made themselves present. Crowbar knew he’d have to be a fool to believe that he’d ever get an explanation from Die without prompt. So he gave it to him, with a cherry on top.

He smiled, ‘Die? Are… Are these for me–’

‘Close the door.’

Crowbar was surprised at the response and the smile faltered. Didn’t Die come here for him? Obviously, he had. Die was the one putting notes under his door after all. But there he was, looking up at Crowbar like _he’d_ been the one interrupting.

Perhaps more prompting was necessary.

‘What?’

‘I’m not done.’

Crowbar fixed him with a confused look, hoping he’d get the message that he would need more to work with than that. Then he looked at the page he held. Only one. The last one.

‘Ah.’

He caught on later than he should have, but in fairness, he was still trying to wrap his head around half of the stuff Die got up to.

‘Should I…?’ Crowbar glanced back into his room and paused, waiting for Die’s approval.

‘Yes.’

He nodded and gently closed the door on Die.

It was weird. But it was Die weird. Crowbar didn’t mind, not anymore.

The final page slipped under and Crowbar collected it up with the rest. He would be able to turn the light on and actually look at them now, these curious gifts. But first…

Crowbar opened the door again.

This time Die was on his feet. His hands fidgeted with each other and his teeth chewed his bottom lip. But his eyes portrayed no anxiousness or fear.

‘What do you think?’

‘I think you could have knocked.’

Die frowned, ‘What do you think about _them?’_

Crowbar looked down at the pages in his hands and sorted through them, dependent on the hallway light once more. Pencil drawings covered every inch, varying in details and size. There were animals, mostly chickens, some buildings perhaps from the city, two dead Itchys, some clocks in the house… One of the clocks had a thumb-shaped smudge.

He was too distracted to stop Die from slipping past him into the room. Crowbar shrugged then peeked out into the hallway, making sure Die was the only one lurking outside his room. Deciding they were alone, he closed the door. More than happy to turn the lock on the freezing draft trying to wade its way in.

‘Did you just wake up?’

‘No.’

‘Couldn’t sleep?’

Crowbar went to flip the light switch, but as his hand moved towards it, he heard a low strangled noise from Die. Darkness it is then.

Die coughed and seemed to look around the room. If he could _actually_ see anything, Crowbar couldn’t tell.

‘Didn’t try to. I was busy.’

‘Busy drawing.’

‘Yes. What do you think?’

Crowbar smiled, even though Die likely couldn’t see, and walked up to him, ‘They are a generous gift. Though I found the ones depicting Itchy a bit, uh, alarming.’

‘He is alarming. I’d use other words as well, but we can start with alarming.’

Die walked away from him and Crowbar worried for a moment that he’d not said enough. Should he have commented on the details?

His eyes followed Die’s shape and watched him start to climb onto his bed.

‘And what are you doing?’ Crowbar said warily.

Die paused. He kicked his shoes off, threw down his hat next to them, then continued onto Crowbar’s bed.

‘Not the answer I was looking for, Die—are you going to sleep?’

Crowbar received a muffled noise in response that he doubted was an actual word to begin with.

‘It’s time to wake up, Die.’

The noise took on a higher, whinier note this time. Crowbar watched his blanket shift as it was pulled over Die’s tall frame. He thought he could see his feet poke out the other end.

Crowbar couldn’t leave him here, not without supervision and not with the possibility that someone could waltz in to see Die in his bed. If that happened, Crowbar would be hearing about it for the rest of his natural life.

‘Die, _please._ I have a day to start here.’

‘It’s warm.’

‘What? Oh.’ He rubbed his forehead. ‘Yes, yes, I know.’

He heard the blankets shift again, then Die’s voice, but clearly this time, ‘Your alarm goes off at six.’

Crowbar huffed, ‘Everyone’s alarm goes off at six. So it’ll be busy.’

‘More people to order around then.’

He cocked his head at Die’s remark. Never too tired to be a smartass apparently.

‘More people to wait in line behind for the bathroom.’

‘Excuses.’

There were three distinct, heavy thumps. It took Crowbar a moment to realise this was Die’s hand patting the space next to him on the mattress.

‘I don’t have time to take a nap.’

‘Wrong. You have 39 minutes.’

‘You can’t just barge in here and tell me what to do. Or what time it is. How can you see what time it is?’

‘You let me in and all I’m stating are facts.’

‘Be any more of a wiseguy and I’ll drag you out.’

Die didn’t respond, instead curling in on himself and drawing the blanket in closer, as if it would protect him.

 _39 minutes_.

‘Fine.’ Crowbar went to pick up his namesake and checked the lock on the door. Better to be safe than sorry, etc. He made a mental note to not be distracted by the new “mail service” again.

He spoke directly to the living lump of blanket.

‘Move over.’

The lump scooted itself towards the other side of the bed.

Crowbar hopped on next to it. He considered leaning over to place his crowbar back into its usual nook but instead left it by the side of the bed. He trusted his reflexes enough to be satisfied.

Against his better judgements of time, routine, and above all else, how to start a successful day, he lay back down. There was no way he could have come to this action himself. It required a special kind of persuasion. The kind of persuasion only an insomniac with an artistic streak and inability to utilise knocking etiquette could deliver. He turned his head to face that persuasion.

‘You better be unready to unfurl yourself and share that.’

‘Make me.’

_38 minutes..._

 

‘Well, if you insist...’


End file.
